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Prof. Dr. José M. Gonzaléz García

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid

José M. González GarcíaJosé M. González GarcíaJosé M. González García

Curriculum Vitae

José María González García, born 1950 in Murcia, studied philosophy and sociology at the Complutense University Madrid where he became professor for sociology at the Faculty for Political Science and Sociology in 1977. From 1980, he taught at the Complutense University as professor for philosophy, before becoming professor at the institute for philosophy of the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) in 1986, which he headed as director from 1998 to 2006. Currently, he is head of the department for Practical Philosophy and head of the research group JUSMENACU (Justice, Memory, Narration and Culture). Furthermore, he held various guest professorships in universities in Europe and Latin America, inter alia at the universities of Berlin (FU), Hamburg, Konstanz, Cambridge, Bogota and Buenos Aires. González García is “life member” of the Clare Hall College of Cambridge University and recipient of the Spanish national prize for literature in the category essay (2007). José M. González García was Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities “Law as Culture” from May to September 2011 and from June to December 2013.

Research project

In his time as Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities “Law as Culture”, Prof. Dr. González García wrote on his book project on the “iconography of justice”.

Publications (selected)

  • La máquina burocrática. Afinidades electivas entre Max Weber y Kafka, Madrid: Visor 1989.
  • Las huellas de Fausto. La herencia de Goethe en la sociología de Max Weber, Madrid: Alianza 1992.
  • La sociología del conocimiento y de la ciencia (together with Emilio Lamo de Espinosa y Cristóbal Torres), Madrid: Alianza 1994.
  • Metáforas del poder, Madrid: Alianza 1998.
  • La diosa Fortuna. Metamorfosis de una metáfora política, Madrid: Antonio Machado libros 2006.

Research interests

  • History of sociological theory with an emphasis on Max Weber
  • Sociology of knowledge
  • Interdependencies of literature, philosophy and social science
  • Metaphor and image in political thought
  • Political identity
  • José María González García is currently working on a book entitled “Walter Benjamin: Literature, Philosophy and Iconography on the Angel of History”